African Sites of Conscience Network

This network works with sites remembering the past in the context of Southern, East-Central, and West African nations experiencing post-colonial and post-conflict transitions. Network members collaborate to present historical models of citizen participation in democratic change and use these histories to inspire dialogue and network members’ work.

Participants

Constitution Hill
Contact: Darryl Petersen, Site Manager
P.O. Box 31005
Braamfontein, 2017, Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel: +27-11-880-2567
Fax: +27-11-381-3108
E-mail: dpetersen@constitutionhill.org.co.za

In 1995, the Constitutional Court judges of South Africa selected the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg as the site for the new Constitutional Court building. The prison complex, which once symbolized the worst of the old apartheid regime and held Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, would now be viewed worldwide as a beacon of hope. Constitution Hill now includes a museum interpreting the history of the prison and issues of justice past and present, public spaces for dialogue, and the Court building itself. The Court building allows visitors to experience South Africa’s transition to democracy, observe the process by which freedom is now protected and learn how South Africa is building the future on its past.

Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage Services, City of Johannesburg
Contact: Irene Mafune
No. 2 President St., Johannesburg Newtown Building
Newtown, Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel: +27-01-373-7519
E-mail: imafune@joburg.org.za

The Department of Arts, Culture, and Heritage Services oversees and manages the Sophiatown Memorial Museum and the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum:

Sophiatown Memorial Museum
In 1955, South Africa’s apartheid government demolished the city of Sophiatown, with the exception of a single church. The city, which was previously racially integrated, was redistricted as a whites only suburb of Johannesburg and renamed Triomf (Africaans for “triumph”). Centered around the one building in Sophiatown that remained intact during the resettlement — the Anglican Church of Christ the King — a memorial constructed on the site aims to capture the suburb’s past memories, as well as celebrate those who played a part in resistance to apartheid.

Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum
Two blocks from the corner where Hector Pieterson was killed by police gunfire, a memorial museum now stands dedicated to all the children killed in the infamous Soweto Riots of June 16, 1976. Twelve-year-old Hector, part of a group of students marching to protest the government’s new policy to enforce education in Afrikaans rather than English, was one of the first casualties of a day which would eventually claim over 500 lives. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, which opened in 2002, chronicles the events leading up to the riots.

District Six Museum
Contact: Bonita Bennett
P.O. Box 10178, Caldeon Square
Cape Town 7905, South Africa
Tel: +27-21-466-7200
Fax: +27-21-466-7210
E-mail: bonita@districtsix.co.za

The mission of District Six Museum is to ensure that the history and memory of forced removals in South Africa endures and, in the process, will change all forms of social oppression. It aims to foster understanding between people, isolated by segregation, by focusing on the cosmopolitan nature of District Six. Central to its mission is the documentation and imaginative reconstructions of the history, laboring life and cultural heritage of District Six.

Ghana Museums and Monuments Board
Contact: Nana Kobina Nketsia
National Museum Accra
Barnes Road, P.O. Box GP
Accra, 3343, Ghana
Tel: + 233-20-890-8357

The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board administers six Ghanaian museums, the largest of which is the National Museum in Accra. Opened in 1957 as part of Ghana’s independence celebration, the Museum contains objects of archaeology, ethnography and fine art and goes as far back in Ghana’s history as the Stone Age. Temporary exhibits are held regularly, by both the Museum and individuals and foreign embassies, and guided tours and films are also provided for guests. The Board oversees the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles:

Cape Coast Castle
Contact: Nicholas Ivor, Director
Cape Coast Castle
P.O.Box 218
Cape Coast, Ghana
Tel. +233 423 2529

One of at least 60 European forts built along the Ghanaian coast, Cape Coast Castle was not initially designed for slave trading. The first building constructed on the site was a
Portuguese lodge, which was expanded by the Dutch into a military fort and eventually taken over by the British in 1664. In an highly institutionalized system with little human contact between the detainers and detainees, the Castle held thousands of slaves awaiting deportation in underground cells. A Dutch Reformed Church was constructed directly over the men’s cells, while other upper floors were used for office space and the official residence of the British governor. The Castle ceased to serve as a slave trading post after Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807; it was converted into the headquarters for local government and housed a prison in one wing of the fort. Cape Coast Castle and has served exclusively as an historical attraction since 1993.

Elmina Castle
Built by the Portuguese in 1482 on the shoreline of the Gold Coast, Elmina Castle was originally established as a trading post for goods bartered for local gold and valuable gems. However, as the demand for slaves increased in the Americas and Caribbean, the Castle gained strategic importance as a depot where hundreds of thousands of slaves were held captive before being transported to across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. The Castle storerooms were converted into dungeons, and the ownership of the castle changed hands several times until it was eventually seized by the British in 1872. During World War II, the British trained soldiers to fight in Burma and India, and in 1948 the castle housed a police training school.

International Council of Museums (ICOM)-Ghana
Contact: Kwame Sarpong
Centre of Ghana P.O.Box UC 35
University Post Office, Cape Coast, Ghana
Tel: +233-24-350-1435
E-mail: sarpongkwame@yahoo.com

The International Council of Museums (ICOM)-Ghana is an organization of museums and museum professionals of Ghana committed to the conservation, continuation and communication to society of Ghana’s natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible. ICOM-Ghana is working with several historic sites in Ghana interested in serving as Sites of Conscience.

Lwandle Migrant Laborers Museum
Contact:Old Community Hall
PO.Box 356
Somerset West 7129, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)21 845 61 19
Fax: +27 (0)21 845 61 19
E-mail: post@lwandle.com

The Lwandle Migrant Laborers hostels were built in 1958 to house workers recruited from the Eastern Cape and former Bantu states. The large hostels offered terrible living conditions and were completely cut off from surrounding communities. Workers had to carry work permits and passes to move between working establishments and the city. The Museum currently provides informative public tours of the hostel that give insight into how the migrant labor system worked in South Africa.

Maison des Esclaves
Contact : Eloi Coly, Deputy Curator
Île de Gorée, Senegal
Tel: +221-33-821-7438
Fax: +221-33-821-7438
E-mail: ecoly78@hotmail.com

The Maison des Esclaves (The Slave House) de Gorée interprets the slave quarters hidden in the damp dark basement of classical buildings beside the sea on the Île de Gorée, where men and women, most of them young, were penned like cattle. Here they often languished for weeks, waiting for the ship that would take them to the plantations and workshops of the Americas. In the 1980s, UNESCO’s Director General said he hopes that the site would serve as a “place of meditation, spiritual reflection and contemplation, where those who are most aware of the tragedies of their story will gain a more real sense of justice and brotherhood.”

McGregor Museum
Contact: Vida Allen
Chapel St and Egerton Rd
Kimberley, 8301, South Africa
Tel: +27-082-654-3084
Email: vida@museumsnc.co.za

The mission of the McGregor Museum is to research, conserve, and promote awareness of the natural and cultural history and diversity of the Northern Cape. Through exhibits covering topics as varied as religion, zoology and rock art, the Museum makes Northern Cape history available to the public through school programs and guided tours.

South End Museum
Contact: Lorna Moodaley
P.O. Box 1327
Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, 6000, South Africa
Tel: + 27-083-996-1438
E-mail: admin@semuseum.co.za

In 1950, the South End of Port Elizabeth, South Africa was redistricted under the Group Areas Act of the country’s apartheid government, and the non-white residents of the area were forcibly uprooted from the community. Today, the South End Museum stands as a memorial to those who were affected by apartheid, and works to educate visitors about the area’s history. The museum’s exhibits extend outside the building, with the Heritage Trail, initiated by the museum’s trustees, that leads visitors on a tour of the buildings and other sites within the museum’s vicinity. Many of the buildings that once existed in these spaces were flattened, including those with historical value, which provides a powerful illustration of the travesty of the Apartheid era.

Worker’s Library Museum
Contact: Anne-Katrin Bicher
Newtown Cultural Precinct
Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa
Tel: +27-084-200-2614
Fax: + 27-01-336-9191
E-mail: wlm_newtown@gmx.net

The Workers’ Library and Museum is situated in a former migrant labor compound in Newtown, the cultural centre of Johannesburg, South Africa. The single-sex hostel is estimated to have been built between 1905 and 1910 by the Johannesburg municipality for the purpose of housing over 300 black male migrants who worked at the city’s power station and other municipal facilities. In 1993, the Workers’ Education Initiative Workers’ Library turned the compound into a museum which was declared a national monument in 1996. Khanya College, a non-governmental organization that provides political and labor education for workers and social movements, incorporated the Workers’ Library and Museum in 2004.

Today the site is a living symbol of the oppression of the migrant-labor system and the racially segregated South African working class in the 20th century. Khanya College is currently re-conceptualizing the museum as a heritage site to commemorate past and present labor and migration struggles in an increasingly globalized world. The museum is part of Khanya College’s Working Class History Program, which promotes awareness of and activism related to labor issues.